Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘Ah-uh-um … not at all, Mrs Holloway.’

‘If Daddy’s “Clive”,’ asks Bea, ‘shouldn’t Lawrence call you “Miranda”, Mummy? I’m only asking.’

‘Bea,’ groans their mum, ‘if you’re bored, buzz off.’

‘And miss Lawrence’s mystery news? It’s not every day your sister gets engaged.’ Bea puts her hand to her mouth. ‘Oops. Sorry. Was that the mystery news? It’s just a wild, wild guess.’

A car backfires on Chislehurst Road. Lawrence puffs out his cheeks, relieved. ‘Yes. I asked Immy to marry me. Immy said …’

‘“Oh, go on then, if you insist,”’ reports Imogen.

‘Clive and I couldn’t be more thrilled,’ says their mum.

‘Unless England wins the Ashes,’ says Elf’s dad, coaxing his pipe back to life. He gives Lawrence his corny wink.

‘Congratulations,’ says Elf. ‘Both of you.’

‘Let’s look at the ring, then, Sis,’ says Bea.

Imogen takes a box from her handbag. Everyone draws close. ‘Gadzooks,’ says Bea. ‘That didn’t come from a cracker.’

‘It cost someone a fair whack,’ says Elf’s dad. ‘My my.’

‘Actually, Mr Hollo— Clive, my gran left it for me, for …’ Lawrence watches Imogen slip it on ‘… for my fiancée.’

‘Isn’t that moving?’ says Elf’s mother. ‘Clive?’

‘Yes, dear.’ Elf’s dad gives Lawrence an arch look. ‘Two magic words you’ll be saying often, from here on in.’

Mum and Dad are a double-act , Elf thinks, like Bruce and me were. Grief for ‘Bruce and Elf’ squeezes her ribcage. It hurts.

‘So,’ says Elf’s mum. ‘Let’s toast the happy couple, shall we?’

They all raise their glasses and chorus: ‘The happy couple!’

‘Welcome to the Holloways,’ says Bea, in a Hammer horror voice. ‘You’re one of us now … “Lawrence Holloway”.’

‘Thanks, Bea, but’ – Lawrence gives his future sister-in-law an indulgent look – ‘it doesn’t quite work like that.’

‘That’s what the last two said,’ says Bea. ‘They’re under the patio. Every year our patio is extended by one yard and Elf’s murder ballad, “The Lovers Of Imogen Holloway”, gets a new verse. Odd.’

Even their mum smiles at this, but Elf can’t find it in herself to join in. ‘Let’s lay the table.’

Bea studies her not-quite-herself sister. ‘O- kay .’

Elf has recorded a solo EP, ‘Oak, Ash And Thorn’; a duo EP, ‘Shepherd’s Crook’, with Bruce; her song ‘Any Way The Wind Blows’ was recorded by American folk singer Wanda Virtue, who put it on a million-selling LP and released it as a Top Twenty single. With her royalty cheques, Elf bought a flat in Soho, an investment that even her father begrudgingly approved. Elf can play a ninety-minute set of folk songs in front of three hundred strangers. She can handle drunken hecklers. She can vote, drive, drink, smoke, have sex and has done all five. Yet bring her back to her family dining table, let her see Uncle Derek’s watercolour of HMS Trafalgar , which she used to try to magic herself into like the children in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader , or the liveried stockade of Encyclopaedia Britannica on the sideboard, and Elf’s adult persona peels away, revealing the spotty, sulky, insecure teenager within. ‘That’s plenty of beef for me, Dad.’

‘It’s only two slices. You’ll fade away to nothing.’

‘You do look pale, darling,’ observes Elf’s mum. ‘I hope you’re not going down with Bruce’s mysterious … lurgy.’

Elf extends her lie. ‘Laryngitis, the doctor said.’

‘Such a pity he missed Immy and Lawrence’s big news.’ Elf is dubious. She suspects her mother of keeping a charge sheet of Bruce’s crimes. These include living in sin with Elf, fuelling Elf’s delusions that music is a career, being a male with long hair, and being Australian. She’ll be happier about our bust-up than she is about Immy and Lawrence’s engagement.

Outside, rain bombards the crocuses to silky mush.

‘Elf?’ Imogen, and everyone else, is watching her.

‘Crikey, sorry, I, uh …’ Elf reaches for the mustard pot she doesn’t want ‘… Miles away. You were saying, Immy?’

‘Lawrence and I are hoping that you and Bruce will play a few songs for us. At the wedding reception.’

Tell them you’ve split up , thinks Elf. ‘We’d love to.’

‘Jolly good.’ Elf’s mum surveys the plates around the table. ‘If everyone has Yorkshire pud, dig in.’

Knives clink and the men make appreciative noises.

‘The beef’s out of this world, Mrs Holloway,’ says Lawrence. ‘And the gravy’s amazing.’

‘Miranda loves cooking with wine.’ Elf’s dad cracks open the old gag. ‘She’s even been known to put some in the food.’

Lawrence smiles as if it’s the first time he’s heard it.

‘Will you still teach,’ Bea asks Imogen, ‘after the wedding?’

‘Not at Malvern. We’re house-hunting in Edgbaston.’

‘Won’t you miss it?’ asks Elf.

‘Life has chapters,’ says Imogen. ‘One ends, another begins.’

Elf’s mum dabs her mouth with her napkin. ‘It’s for the best, darling. One can only juggle so much.’

‘Very sensible,’ agrees Elf’s dad. ‘Being a housewife and mother is a full-time job. At the bank, we don’t employ married women.’

‘ I think –’ Bea grinds the pepper mill ‘– that a policy designed to punish women for marrying should shrivel up and die.’

Elf’s dad rises to the bait. ‘Nobody’s punishing anyone. It’s simply a recognition of altered priorities.’

Bea rises to the bait. ‘It still means women end up at the kitchen sink and the ironing board, as far as I can see.’

Elf’s dad rises to the bait. ‘You can’t change biology.’

‘It’s not about biology.’ Elf rises to the bait.

‘Gosh.’ Her dad acts surprised. ‘What’s it about, then?’

‘Attitudes. Not so long ago, women couldn’t vote or divorce or own property or go to university. Now we can. What changed? Not biology – attitudes changed. And attitudes changed the law.’

‘Ah, to be young’ – their dad spears a carrot – ‘and be right about the ways of the world, by default.’

‘I understand you and Bruce are starting work on the new album next week, Elf?’ says Lawrence, as Elf’s mum serves up a ladle’s worth of trifle from the Waterford crystal bowl.

‘That was the plan, but there’s been a – a mix-up at the studio. Unfortunately.’

‘So it’s being postponed?’ Bea’s confused.

‘Only for a week or two.’ Elf hates lying.

‘What sort of “mix-up at the studio”?’ Elf’s dad frowns.

‘There was a double-booking,’ says Elf. ‘Apparently.’

‘Sounds jolly slapdash to me.’ Elf’s mum passes the bowl of trifle to Elf’s dad. ‘Can’t you take your business elsewhere?’

Not only do I hate lying , thinks Elf, I’m crap at it. ‘I suppose so, but we like the engineer at Regent, we know the equipment.’

‘Olympic did do a lovely job with “Shepherd’s Crook”,’ says Imogen.

‘A cracking job,’ echoes Lawrence, as if he knows the first thing about recording. Elf imagines the freshly engaged couple turning into Clive and Miranda Holloway in thirty years. One part of her recoils; another envies Imogen the clarity of her future life.

‘If everyone has trifle,’ Elf’s mum surveys the table, ‘dig in.’

‘How did you and Bruce meet, Elf?’ asks Lawrence.

I’d rather scoop out my kidneys than answer this , thinks Elf, but if I don’t, they’ll guess something’s wrong, Mum’ll winkle the whole sordid tale out of me. ‘Backstage at a folk-club in Islington. The Christmas before last. Australian folk music was a new thing, so everyone was curious to go and hear him. After the show I asked Bruce about his chord tuning and he asked about an Irish ballad I’d sung …’ and then we went back to his borrowed room by Camden Lock and by the New Year I loved him as hopelessly, as helplessly, as a girl in a folk song, and he loved me back as much. So I thought. But maybe he saw me as a way to leave sleeping on mates’ sofas and pulling pints in Earls Court behind. I’ll never know. Nine days ago he discarded me like a crusty tissue … Elf forces a smile. ‘Your and Immy’s story at the Christian camp is much more romantic.’